LL = BGRH Lite?

Slow Motion

OK, this is inspired by the debate going on in the Feminist Forum request thread. What do you think, is the ladies lounge just a female equivalent of the BGRH and only light hearted threads and a bit of gentle pisstaking should be the order of the day? Should it be a mix of serious and silly, threads for serious debate and opinion where burning issues of the day can be had along with more light hearted discussions on what to wear to the office party and the latest chick lit books? Or should all the silly heads be barred and only serious discussion of issues relevant to the modern woman be allowed. There is some debate as to what this place represents, and I think the regulars here should have their input. So, off you go!

Sherifu

Deja Vu, see the thread on bitchiness. This was discussed.

ztoical

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

Slow Motion wrote: »

OK, this is inspired by the debate going on in the Feminist Forum request thread. What do you think, is the ladies lounge just a female equivalent of the BGRH and only light hearted threads and a bit of gentle pisstaking should be the order of the day? Should it be a mix of serious and silly, threads for serious debate and opinion where burning issues of the day can be had along with more light hearted discussions on what to wear to the office party and the latest chick lit books? Or should all the silly heads be barred and only serious discussion of issues relevant to the modern woman be allowed. There is some debate as to what this place represents, and I think the regulars here should have their input. So, off you go!

did you have a look through the recent b*tchness thread? I think alot of people expressed what they thought LL was and what it should be on that thread.

As I already said on that thread I think there is room for light hearted threads and more serious discussions.

Silverfish

Already been discussed.

There is room for both. Some people will come here for one thing, some will come for another.

Neither should feel their topic is too serious or not serious enough.

tallaght01

Silverfish wrote: »

Already been discussed.

There is room for both.

There may be room for both, but both are not neccesarily encouraged equally.

Slow Motion

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

Sherifu wrote: »

Deja Vu, see the thread on bitchiness. This was discussed.

ztoical wrote: »

did you have a look through the recent b*tchness thread? I think alot of people expressed what they thought LL was and what it should be on that thread.

As I already said on that thread I think there is room for light hearted threads and more serious discussions.

I did and posted on it, from what I've seen there still doesn't seem to be consensus, I put this here to get some numbers (I'm a sucker for statistics). Mods if you feel this poll is not relevant or is stirring things up (NOT my intention) then please feel free to lock/delete it. I really am interested in how people see it. This doesn't have to get into a huge devisive debate, people can vote without posting you know:)

Jules

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

I think its a good idea Slow Mo, continue!


And Tallaght what did you mean by your comment? Why do you think certain threads are not encouraged?

Cathmandooo

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

I like to come in here to discuss light hearted things - men you fancy, drinks you prefer, etc.

But also like to read up on good advice from womens own experiences i.e. laser treatment, contraception etc.

tallaght01

Slomo,

I'm no burd, but i'm confused by your poll. Is it asking what the forum is about in practice, or what it should be about?

Silverfish

tallaght01 wrote: »

There may be room for both, but both are not neccesarily encouraged equally.

Do explain.

tallaght01

Jules wrote: »

And Tallaght what did you mean by your comment? Why do you think certain threads are not encouraged?

The feeling I get (see, men have feelings too) are that panda and dudess' feminist ideals (which I'm very interested in hearing about) get a pretty hostile reception in here sometimes.

Having said that, I say read maybe 10 or 15% of the threads in here, so I could be wrong.

Jules

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

I dont think that at all tbh, and the reson there were issues were given before. I think there is plenty of room for both to be within the same fora!

Slow Motion

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

tallaght01 wrote: »

Slomo,

I'm no burd, but i'm confused by your poll. Is it asking what the forum is about in practice, or what it should be about?

Good question, a bit of both really. There seemed to be some question about it in the thread I mentioned in my OP and I thought it might be useful to ask the posters of this forum what they think it is/should be. A poll I think was best as if you just ask a question like this in a thread, it has the potential to run to a million pages and opinions get lost / repeated ad nauseum (sp) so instead I thought I would get people to put their money where their mouth is and vote! People are welcome to give their opinion on this thread as well but the vote will tell it's own story! Have I cleared or muddied the waters?

WindSock

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

Again, both are welcome, both are encouraged as long as they stay out of each others threads.

tallaght01

Slow Motion wrote: »

Good question, a bit of both really. There seemed to be some question about it in the thread I mentioned in my OP and I thought it might be useful to ask the posters of this forum what they think it is/should be. A poll I think was best as if you just ask a question like this in a thread, it has the potential to run to a million pages and opinions get lost / repeated ad nauseum (sp) so instead I thought I would get people to put their money where their mouth is and vote! People are welcome to give their opinion on this thread as well but the vote will tell it's own story! Have I cleared or muddied the waters?

But what if what it is and what it should be are 2 different things? :P

Not my opinion.

I have no latent feminist leanings :P

Slightly off topic, I think the idea of a gender issues forum would be great.

Guess I shoud go and tell them that on the appropriate forum, shouldn't i :P

Silverfish

tallaght01 wrote: »

The feeling I get (see, men have feelings too) are that panda and dudess' feminist ideals (which I'm very interested in hearing about) get a pretty hostile reception in here sometimes.

Having said that, I say read maybe 10 or 15% of the threads in here, so I could be wrong.

Yes.

The issue was, threads being dragged OFF TOPIC to discuss feminist ideals.

OFF TOPIC POSTS get a hostile reception, not the content within.

Is the picture getting clearer for everyone yet??

Tom Dunne

I think it's the whole Venus vs. Mars debate.

LL can never be BGRH Lite. You will never, ever, ever get a serious thread in BGRH. Somebody, and I include myself in this, will always take the piss. It's just that kind of forum.

Whereas, here I think there is room for both serious and non-serious.

tallaght01

Silverfish wrote: »

Yes.

The issue was, threads being dragged OFF TOPIC to discuss feminist ideals.

OFF TOPIC POSTS get a hostile reception, not the content within.

Is the picture getting clearer for everyone yet??

It's not an issue where people don;t understand.

The miss world one comes to mind.

Panda started it a as a feminist0 ssues thread, but was met with a lot of hostility. That's fair enough when the hostility stems from ideological differences, but I don't think it did.

What I'm saying is that thread would have took ona very diferent life in a feminism forum

themadchef

Atari Jaguaress.

I'd hate to see this place go all serious. I think there are other forums on boards to deal with the serious issues people may want to discuss.

Where do you draw the line though? What topics are considered too femenistic. Would it not be much easier if it were more like BGRH? A place to unwind, have the criac.

Yes discuss certain things, like Cathooo said, there are certain issues that have a place here but it should be in more of a "relaxed" type of way imo .

Just a thought

Katrina

Silverfish

tallaght01 wrote: »

It's not an issue where people don;t understand.

The miss world one comes to mind.

Panda started it a as a feminist0 ssues thread, but was met with a lot of hostility. That's fair enough when the hostility stems from ideological differences, but I don't think it did.

I'm going to have to ask you to back that one up. I read that thread, and I think the hostilities stemmed from differences of opinion. I believe that does, has, and will always happen on any forum, not just this one.

watna

tallaght01 wrote: »

It's not an issue where people don;t understand.

The miss world one comes to mind.

Panda started it a as a feminist0 ssues thread, but was met with a lot of hostility. That's fair enough when the hostility stems from ideological differences, but I don't think it did.

What I'm saying is that thread would have took ona very diferent life in a feminism forum

but if panda had started that in a feminist forum would she not just have got a lot of agreement from women who consider themselves "feminists" instead of a broader opinion from all boards ladies?

People don't start threads to hear everyone agree with them. (well they shouldn't!) From reading the thread I presumed panda wanted to hear everyone's genuine opinions. I know I do.

Tom Dunne

Silverfish wrote: »

I believe that does, has, and will always happen on any forum, not just this one.

Agreed, but I think the general feeling is that it happens more frequently on this forum.

Though having said that, it does appear the bout of turbulence has passed, the forum appears to be finding it's feet.

tallaght01

Silverfish wrote: »

I'm going to have to ask you to back that one up. I read that thread, and I think the hostilities stemmed from differences of opinion. I believe that does, has, and will always happen on any forum, not just this one.

C'mon we're adults here. I'm not going to start pointing the fingers at people here. There were people who's aggressiveness dind't neccesarily reflect the gravity of the points they were making, let me say.

It doesn't matter if you agree with me, but that's how I saw it. But I'm not going calling people out on it.

Jules

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

About that thread, that was actually dragged off topic by yourself panda and someone else.

But i do think that when there are differences of opinion in here it is marked down as bitchiness and not a difference of opinion simply because we are women

Reku

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

Silverfish wrote: »

I'm going to have to ask you to back that one up. I read that thread, and I think the hostilities stemmed from differences of opinion. I believe that does, has, and will always happen on any forum, not just this one.

I'd agree with you, if I came across as hostile in that thread it was completely unintended I was simply trying to put across that I do not think *geh* let's just say I disagreed with the credibility of her source for some of the info, going into any more detail just sounds like trying to kick it off again here.

Jules wrote: »

About that thread, that was actually dragged off topic by yourself panda and someone else.

Me, I'm sorry.:(

Kinda pleased by the fact that even online I'm rapidly forgotten though. Thank you.:)

tallaght01

Jules wrote: »

About that thread, that was actually dragged off topic by yourself panda and someone else.

I don't think panda dragged it off thread. It was me and farofar.

But the thread was dead and buried at by then, in fairness.

But on a feminist/gender issues forum it may well have happilly wandered off into a discussion of female Vs male depression.

Ginny

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

Tbh I think theres room for both to a certain degree, but every single thread being dragged into a feminist debate was mind numbingly boring.
I avoided the LL after all the kerfuffle, as I for one work hard enough etc... and come to boards for some fun, I was sick of seeing people being judged by one or two posts by other posters.

justsomebloke

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

tallaght01 wrote: »

What I'm saying is that thread would have took ona very diferent life in a feminism forum

To be truthful though that is like saying if a BGRH thread was posted in the fitness forum it would be answered differentaly. Of course it would as you don't get the same overlap in opinions in one forum as you do in another. Hell the same posters may even have different posting styles depending on which forum they post on. For example I would never answer a post in the fitness forum as I would in the BGRH forum as a difference in styles is needed in both forums.

Also from my point of view the LL shouldn't be just be a BGRH style forum as they were created to fulfill different types of needs. I Actually think the LL needs to be success for boards as it will help broach the gap in what many people would feel to be a male dominated society. The LL could easily help encourage a new type of poster to boards who wouldn't generally post here.
I also think that boards needs more women on board to make the BGRH&LL beers more interesting for the brothers as you can never have enough hot wimmins:D

Slow Motion

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

jsb wrote: »

Hell the same posters may even have different posting styles depending on which forum they post on. For example I would never answer a post in the fitness forum as I would in the BGRH forum as a difference in styles is needed in both forums.

True! I don't usually take the pi$$ in here (well except for the anne summers thread, sorry Jules couldn't resist that one) where as in BGRH it's expected!

cuckoo

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

Am i alone in enjoying the 'grrrrr arrrrgggh' that sometimes happens when self proclaimed feminism comes up against self proclaimed girlie here in the LL?

The BGRH have perpetual p1ss taking to amuse themselves, in the LL there's angst over whether feelings are being hurt. Maybe we should get a little more lighthearted....?

That said, i love the hair removal/contraception/etc threads and have learned a lot from other female posters here. There's really no way i could see the menstrual cup thread being taken seriously on any other forum. I think it's a bit sad that the boys don't have a forum to talk about erectile dysfunction and their prostates with each other - PI isn't really that useful for getting actual worthwhile advice.

Zaph

jsb wrote: »

For example I would never answer a post in the fitness forum as I would in the BGRH forum as a difference in styles is needed in both forums.

You would never answer a post where??? We need to have a little chat Brother...

cuckoo wrote: »

I think it's a bit sad that the boys don't have a forum to talk about erectile dysfunction and their prostates with each other - PI isn't really that useful for getting actual worthwhile advice.

It may be sad, but tbh they're subjects most guys don't really want to talk about anyway. If they do, at least PI has the benefit of anonymity. You'd have to open a separate Mens' Health forum for discussing stuff like that, BGRH certainly isn't the place for it. There are the odd penis-related threads crop up on PI from time to time (the circumcision one was quite active I think), but getting men to discuss this sort of thing is difficult at the best of times and I don't know if such a forum would work, even if you could post enregged.

However, the LL is a completely different place to either BGRH or a Mens' Health type forums and I think it works best as a middle ground somewhere between the two. Women are generally more open to discussing "issues" such as health and relationships than men are, and a group of women together for an hour will more than likely have conversations ranging from the serious to the trivial, whereas in my experience men can keep conversations going on a more superficial level for longer. All that's happened in the LL and BGRH is that the forums have mimicked these dynamics. Where the problems appear to have arisen it generally seems to be a case of someone wanting to take a more serious, or light-hearted, view than what's been discussed previously. I think in cases like this the poster should really start another thread on the same topic with their more serious, or trivial, opinion and take it from there. You may actually find that someone actually wants to join in the fun on the silly thread, but also has a serious point to make on the issue.

I think there's been too much hand-wringing over what this forum is, or what it should be. I don't think any other forum has ever experienced such navel-gazing, and I think it's now time for everyone to accept and enjoy it for what it is.

DetectivFoxtrot

Silverfish wrote: »

Already been discussed.

There is room for both. Some people will come here for one thing, some will come for another.

Neither should feel their topic is too serious or not serious enough.

+1

and may say, as a noobie, I love LL as it's ALL very interesting - serious or not

Crumble Froo

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

i enjoy the serious and lighthearted threads. some i have no interest in, and others i love to follow. as far as im concerned, a lounge for ladies concerns a lot of people. a lot of differnet opinions, and points of view. im all for a healthy debate, but some things just get too aggressive, and need to be glossed over as far as im concerned, but by no means should it be either or. i enjoy threads about my ideal pets, and fun random stuff, but i find contraceptive and other therads really fascinating, though i may not have enough knowledge/confidence to post in them, i do read them a lot.

Crazy Catlady

Light hearted stuff only we come here to play.

I'd be of the mindset that the ladies lounge should cater to all women.
"Ladies" is a loose term, none of us could comply with it all the time
I only get involved in serious issues if i feel i have something worthwhile to say or contribute, I wouldn't jump in just to stir things up.
I think maybe there was an oversensitivity on both sides at the start, but it is finding its feet.
By nature, as women, we are diverse and changing all the time. And as I learn more, my opinions change too. I won't ever tie myself to any one label, whether "feminist" or "girlie girl".
I think all of us are more than the sum of our parts. And the topics both serious and light hearted reflect that.